The Great Train Robbery

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Shooting the audience half a century before James Bond.

An early film Western, made in 1903 by Edwin S. Porter for Thomas Edison's production company. It depicts a group of criminals robbing a train and its passengers, escaping in the uncoupled locomotive, and being pursued and killed by a Posse recruited from a local dance hall. Apart from the title card and the famous shot of an outlaw firing at the audience, the film consists of thirteen shots, taking place in three interior and a variety of exterior locations. There are no intertitles.

It was one of the longest narrative films yet produced, and contains early uses of what would come to be standard cinematic techniques: composite editing (via multiple exposure), location shooting, intercutting between simultaneously-occurring scenes, cutting within the same scene to compress time, and camera movement.

This film is in the public domain, and may be viewed at YouTube and elsewhere. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1990.

Not to be confused with the 1975 Michael Crichton novel or other Similarly Named Works.

Tropes used in The Great Train Robbery include:

• Bound and Gagged
• Breaking the Fourth Wall/The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: One of the earliest known film examples of this trope; the leader of the outlaws fires at the audience. Stories say that some people were so shocked at seeing this, that they ducked or even passed out in the theater. Remember, this is still a time when it was magic that the picture could move.
• Bullet Dancing
• California Doubling: New Jersey stands in for The Wild West.
• Justus D. Barnes Is Shooting You
• Popcultural Osmosis: It's mainly known through its homages, particularly the famous shot of Justus Barnes being used in Tombstone.
• Posse
• Splash of Color: The gunshot and some clothing, achieved by hand-coloring frames one at a time.
• Thief Bag
• Train Job
• Trope Codifier
• The Western: the Ur Example of Film Westerns.